Here’s a Job You Don’t Want Now: USC Travel Agent

USC crunched Notre Dame, 44-13, at the Coliseum on Saturday night, but now comes the really hard part -- crunching the bowl championship series numbers.

USC’s victory, combined with No. 3 Oklahoma’s earlier loss, had officials and conference commissioners almost paralyzed with possibilities.

“That Oklahoma loss complicated the hell out of it,” Clark Cook, the Orange Bowl’s football chairman, said in the Coliseum press box.

The Trojans won an important game on the field, but they still don’t know where they’re going to play after the holidays or which team they’re going to be playing.

USC’s list of possible bowls has been narrowed to ... Fiesta, Rose, Orange, Sugar or Holiday.

Seriously.

The Trojans are, conceivably, two losses (Miami and Georgia) from playing in the Fiesta Bowl for the national championship yet, without playing another game, could drop all the way to the Holiday Bowl.

USC goes to the Rose Bowl if UCLA beats Washington State on Saturday.

USC goes to the Orange Bowl if it gets an automatic BCS bid and the Orange Bowl has no choice but to take the Trojans.

USC goes to the Sugar if it gets an automatic bid, the Orange takes another at-large team, and USC is forced to New Orleans.

USC goes to the Holiday if Washington State wins the Rose Bowl bid and USC does not get an at-large selection -- a remote possibility, but it could happen.

Before it considers any or all of this conundrum, USC should send flowers to Oklahoma State for upsetting Oklahoma.

That afternoon result could vault USC to No. 4 in Monday’s BCS standings and, if the standings held up through the final rankings on Dec. 8, would guarantee the Trojans no worse than an at-large berth in a BCS game.

How?

USC ranked No. 6 in last week’s standings, .94 behind No. 5 Iowa. With Oklahoma’s loss, USC might be able to leapfrog Iowa for No. 4.

There’s no telling if the Trojans can overtake Iowa, which finished its season Nov. 16, but it appears USC could pick up BCS ground in the poll average and computer component elements.

If USC gets to No. 4 and Washington State defeats UCLA to win the Rose Bowl bid, either the Sugar or Orange Bowl must take the Trojans, breaking a long tradition of those bowls not hosting West Coast teams. (No Pac-10 school has ever played in the Sugar Bowl and only one school, Washington, has appeared in the Orange.)

“USC would be a great draw for our bowl,” Sugar Bowl president Oscar Gwin said, although even he wasn’t sure how the Trojans would land in the Jan. 1 New Orleans game.

If Washington State loses to UCLA, of course, the at-large question is moot, as USC would win the Pac-10 title and go to the Rose Bowl.

If USC gets the No. 4 spot, and Washington State goes to the Rose Bowl, the Orange Bowl could get squeezed into a difficult decision.

Remember, the Orange Bowl would get the first at-large pick if it loses No. 1 Miami to the Fiesta Bowl. In this scenario, the Orange Bowl could choose from a pool of Iowa, USC, Notre Dame or the Big 12 champion (Oklahoma or Colorado).

If the Orange Bowl takes two-loss Notre Dame, it would knock 11-1 Iowa out of the BCS. If the Orange takes Iowa, it would greatly displease the Pac-10 and the Rose Bowl.

“The Orange Bowl would be discouraged from taking Iowa,” Pac-10 Commissioner Tom Hansen said Saturday.

But what’s the Orange to do? It could be left no choice but to take USC, even though the Orange Bowl’s future in the BCS might be tied to being able to sell out its game.

“We have a very complicated choice this year,” the Orange Bowl’s Cook said, “but that doesn’t mean we won’t make the right choice.”

The Orange Bowl’s nightmare scenario would be resolved if UCLA beats Washington State.

That would put USC in the Rose Bowl, and leave the Orange Bowl to take Notre Dame and allowing Iowa to play in Pasadena in an almost dream matchup of top-five teams.

Of course, this is provided Saturday’s lopsided loss does not knock the Irish out of the BCS top 12 (not likely), which would make them BCS ineligible.

Despite USC’s dominant performance Saturday, it still is not entirely in the BCS clear.

How’s that?

If Miami and Georgia win next week, and USC does not jump Iowa in the BCS, Iowa will get the automatic at-large bid at No. 4, leaving the Orange Bowl to choose between two-loss Notre Dame and two-loss USC.

This seems a ridiculously obvious choice in that USC just pounded Notre Dame, but the Orange Bowl may still take the Irish because of their national drawing power.

Publicly, the Orange Bowl has nothing but nice things to say about USC.

The reality, though, is that the game would be loath to stage a possible USC-Florida State matchup.

“SC has done all it can to protect itself, sending athletic department officials to South Florida to lobby on the Trojans’ behalf.

Hansen said Saturday his conference is willing to put $500,000 toward subsidizing a possible USC trip to the Orange Bowl.

The Pac-10 is very interested in not getting shortchanged in this deal.

“Our athletic directors have told us to take a very aggressive stance on getting a second [BCS] team in,” Hansen said.

A second team in the BCS would mean an additional $4.5 million to be distributed to conference schools on top of the $13-million BCS bowl payout.

It is a byproduct of the BCS system that vested interests should be so varied.

The Rose Bowl is rooting for a USC-Iowa matchup, while it is in the Pac-10’s financial interest to have Washington State in the Rose Bowl and USC in the Sugar or Orange.

The Orange Bowl will be huge UCLA fans next week, if only to extricate itself from a politically sensitive decision.

Other than that, it was just another USC-Notre Dame game.